


Mediated Discourse

by fairytiger



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 23:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytiger/pseuds/fairytiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>For all the careful planning, precision, and--if you want to be romantic about it--fate that it took to bring her here, she is gone in the push of two buttons.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mediated Discourse

**Author's Note:**

> Post Episode 84 "Ugh"
> 
> Huge thanks to Amber and Megan for beta help and long discussions about this life-ruining series.

For all the careful planning, precision, and--if you want to be romantic about it--fate that it took to bring her here, she is gone in the push of two buttons.

“All of your flight information is in here,” he says, handing her a thin manilla envelope at the car that arrived in exactly five minutes (sometimes he wishes the timing in his life wasn’t quite so impeccable). “Have you made arrangements for someone to pick you up?”

She nods, her eyes still wide with worry. “Jane.”

“Good.”

The passenger door is open, though she seems in no hurry to get in. As if he is in any hurry to see it close.

“Thank you,” she says with a pained smile. “For insisting.”

“Of course.”

She leaves with a touch on his arm, much like the one from a day not very long ago but might as well be another lifetime in what’s transpired since.

He stays just long enough to watch the car disappear behind one of the more unforgiving hills.

\--

The 45 minute flight home is barely enough time to justify the drink cart, let alone sleep, which Lizzie feels like she could easily do and not wake up until this nightmare is over.

So she pulls out her laptop instead and checks Lydia’s Twitter page for the first time in months, starts at the Vegas videos, and holds her breath.

The first time they kiss, she slams her screen down so hard she wakes the traveling businessman next to her. She mouths “sorry”, closes her eyes, and swallows the lump in her throat.

She collects herself somewhere over the central coast, scrolling through her phone for a distraction. Then a thought occurs to her and she quickly searches for the San Francisco Theater District.

The ballet is playing at the War Memorial, and _Carmen_ at the opera. She turns her phone off and doesn’t look at it again until she lands.

\--

The only--and really, it’s the only one he can think of--advantage to her leaving is that he can finally give full attention to the work that had been previously ignored.

If only he had his full attention to give.

That afternoon, he answers one e-mail.

Friday morning, he sends another.

That’s it.

He gives up at noon, piles of paperwork still untouched.

“I’ll be working from home indefinitely,” he tells Mrs. Reynolds, gathering his coat and briefcase.

“Would you like your calls forwarded to your home phone, sir?”

“No, messages will be fine, thank you.” He turns to leave, then stops.

“Though, should Ms. Bennet call for any reason--not that she would, of course--but if she does, that would be fine to put through.”

She nods, and Darcy chooses to ignore the knowing look of sympathy she tries and fails to hide.

\--

Being home is like being at a wake where no one has actually died.

It’s Lizzie and Jane’s unfortunate task to try and explain to their parents--the same people who tried and failed to use AOL for god’s sake--what’s happened.

Their mother, to no one’s surprise, bursts into full on hysterics, crying about her “poor baby” and how “no one will _evah_ marry her now.”

Their father says nothing, and excuses himself to his workshop.

“He was such a lovely boy, too. You knew him, Elizabeth, this just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he would do!”

Lizzie suppresses the bile curling in her stomach. “You would think.”

Jane finds her later, skimming through her Pemberley notes. Pages and pages of what can't exactly be called critical analysis; more like gushing about an environment designed to fuel the creative process and leadership that prioritizes innovation over monetary gain.

It's the graduate study equivalent of doodling his name in the margins, and she knows it.

“Reading? I don't want to interrupt,” Jane asks.

“No, you're fine. Just catching up on some homework.”

She peers over her shoulder and Lizzie can practically hear her smile. “You certainly mention Darcy a lot.”

“He’s the CEO,” she shrugs. “And he helped me out with my videos.”

“He did?” Jane sits on her bed. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to catch up with them but--”

“It’s okay. But yeah, we did an interview and some costume theater and talked about hyper-mediation and yeah, it was, yeah. Good. It was good.”

“So it was good then.” Jane is practically giddy. It’s gross.

Lizzie throws a crumpled piece of paper at her head, which she narrowly dodges, and they laugh for the first time in days.

\--

The second time Gigi calls, it’s in person, waking him in his study.

“I come bearing lunch because for one, I figured you hadn’t eaten and two, I figured it might get me back on your good side.”

He rubs his eyes. “You’re correct on both counts.”

She makes a picnic on the floor with fruit and sandwiches and wine that judgment says he should decline but that every other part of him that physically aches accepts.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she starts. “This is purely a checkup visit to make sure you’re sustained.”

“For now,” he admits, then gestures emptily to his discarded laptop. “I’m not getting anywhere. No address, no phone number, the man is impossible to track down.”

“Well we know he’s good at disappearing when need be.” She says it without a catch in her voice or avoiding his glance. Maybe she was right; she is stronger now.

“I know you want to help--”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, of course I do, but it’s not my fight.”

He scoffs. “You mean to say it isn’t mine either?”

“Even if it wasn’t, would that stop you? This is what you do for the people you love.” She reaches over and squeezes his hand. “You guys have that in common.”

\--

When she was little, Lydia suffered from nightmares. Once a week, Lizzie would be woken by cold feet stuck between her legs and skinny arms holding tight around her middle. Then they’d both crawl into Jane’s bed, barely big enough for two. Lizzie would stroke her hair and Jane would sing and when the youngest’s breathing was even again, they’d drift back to sleep, each holding on to the other.

This is what Lizzie remembers, lying in her own bed, wide awake, twisting her sheets in knots as she thinks of Lydia and her real life nightmare and what she would give to protect her now.

Her door opens and for a split second she believes it _will_ be Lydia, with cold feet and tear-stained cheeks.

“Lizzie? Did I wake you?” Jane’s voice is small and quiet in the dark.

“No, I’ve been up.” She lifts the covers on her bed that’s barely big enough for one. And her big sister, who will someday be a big time fashion designer, who moved out on her own to LA and not only survived the worst heartbreak of her life but came out the other side stronger for it, climbs in next to her.

“I’m worried.”

“Me too.”

“Did you talk to Mary?”

“Yeah, she says Lydia’s fine. Keeps to herself, but fine.”

“I’m still worried.”

“Me too,” Lizzie whispers. “Me too.”

\--

He misses her.

He realizes that the very words themselves are a gross understatement, but he does. How a company that for years operated perfectly fine without her and a city in which she resided less than a month can suddenly seem so empty and wrong is beyond him. But just as she is a natural storyteller, she is naturally magnetic, taking ownership of everyone and everything around her.

Perhaps that is what he misses most.

Aside from the obvious.

At the time, he’d been too shy, too self conscious to look at Gigi’s pictures of their tour. But after a marathon six hours of trying and failing to make headway on the George Wickham Problem, he gives in, pulls up his sister’s Twitter and clicks through them.

They’re mostly of Lizzie, pointing to various tourist locations, and though she’s building a career out of being on camera, she looks remarkably shy, just as self conscious as he had been.

There’s the picture of them together, Lizzie awkwardly waving as he did his best “I’m going to take that camera from you if you don’t turn it off” expression.

And then there’s a candid that stops him cold.

They’re at a rooftop restaurant, his choice for the view alone. He’s looking off into the distance, most likely trying to discern the location of one building or another and she...

She is looking at him.

\--

She dreads Monday.

She knows people expect a video, including her professors who would prefer if she didn’t fail grad school, but she hardly has it in her. Costume theater seems silly and wildly inappropriate and there’s nothing to report that isn’t intensely private or intensely boring (do viewers really want to hear about Kitty’s adventures with laser pointers? Doubtful).

But this was the deal all along: her life, for better or for worse.

She hits record.

“Hey everyone. I know a lot of you have been wondering about...everything, and if I had good news, you know I would share it, but I just...don’t.”

She sighs, stretches, cracks her neck and starts over.

“Hey everyone! It’s so great having Jane home. Aside from her lovely company, she is baking 24/7! Seriously, you can’t smell it, but the whole house smells like a giant cookie and...”

God, what is _wrong_ with her today? She shakes out her hands, tries to think back to her oration classes in undergrad. Aside from picturing people in their underwear (which never works, by the way), she found she could quiet her nerves if she tuned out her dozens of classmates and pretended she was just having a regular conversation with someone she trusted. Like Charlotte or Jane or--

She takes a deep breath, straightens her sweater.

“So as hard as I’ve tried to maintain a cheery disposition these last few days, I bet you’re not buying it. And...you would be right. So if you’re wondering how I’m really doing? Not great. This sucks, there’s no other word for it. Home doesn’t feel like it used to, Mom is in shambles, Dad is in a whole other world, Jane is...well, Jane is using baking as a coping mechanism. A delicious, delicious coping mechanism. And I am just...sad. Sad that my family is going through all of this, and while I don’t regret for a second coming home, I’m really sad that my time at Pemberley was cut short. Because it’s an amazing company and I feel like I was just starting to settle in. I mean, I loved it there and I think could have learned a lot more given the chance. Maybe I could have even had a future there, I don’t know. But I miss it, and when this family crisis is over once and for all, I hope I get a chance to go back. If they’ll have me.”

She feels a flush creep up her neck and forces a laugh.

“And now I am rambling! Here I was worried I’d have nothing to talk about it. Anyway, thanks for keeping up with me and with any luck, I’ll have good news to report next time.”

She turns the camera off, falls back in her chair, and buries her face in her hands.

“My name is Lizzie Bennet,” she says to no one, biting her lip because dear god, she might be grinning. “And I just told the world that I’m in love with Darcy.”

\--

“Are you still watching her videos?”

“Gigi?”

“Yes, and are you still watching her videos?”

“I’ve been a little preoccupied as of late.” He finally has something resembling a lead: a business name and a location thanks to a dear friend taking a bullet and actually “pre-ordering” the video (he’s already promised Fitz a single malt that’s older than he is and the Aspen house for Christmas). It’s vague, but it’s something.

Plus the days have started to blur together; he can’t believe it’s already Monday.

“Besides, it feels...invasive now. With everything. But I take it you’ve watched it?”

She pauses. “Yes.”

Darcy waits. “And?”

“And--ugh okay so I promised Fitz and myself that I wouldn’t interfere anymore because you’re busy and not only are you busy you’re busy helping _them_ and it’s really none of my business and you should find out in your own time but oh my god Will if you want any shred of happiness in your life you will promise me that you will watch. the. video.”

“I promise?”

“Okay. Good. Great! Okay, I’ll let you go. Love you bye.”

He stares at his phone, then at his laptop. There are twenty different tabs open between e-mail and various social media networks, newspapers and pages of notes since he’d started his search. But her YouTube page is one of them.

The most recent video is simply entitled “Home.”

“If I had good news you know I would share it but I just...don’t.”

He’s trying, he _really_ is.

“The whole house smells like a giant cookie...”

She wore his jacket in the early hours of their tour of the city. When he got it back, it smelled of roses and, oddly (wonderfully), a library.

“It’s an amazing company and I feel like I was just starting to settle in.”

He hovers over the pause button, a miracle he’s made it this long.

“I mean, I loved it there and I think could have learned a lot more given the chance. Maybe I could have even had a future there.”

Gigi’s words shout over hers and oh.

Oh.

“If they’ll have me.”

The video ends, though he couldn’t tell you how.

But it’s clear that it’s not over. Not in the least.

He clicks the tab closed, goes back to his notes.

There’s work to do.

\--


End file.
